I was pleased to read Dr. Fagge's contribution to the debate on
Debs and his proper role in American labor and radical history.

I was actually hoping, however, that my own articles on Debs's
role in the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike would spur additional
studies on the activities of SPA officials on the local level in
other situations as I considered the facts quite obvious and clear
cut in this case. After reading Fagge's article, I still do. I see
no reason to change my interpretation.

Most of Fagge's article is merely a recapitulation of the facts
as I laid out in articles in West Virginia History and the
Journal of American History. With the exception of some
aggregate voting statistics (to which I will return), Fagge
presents no new facts or other evidence to challenge my
conclusions. He simply tries to put a different editorial slant on
this event.

Let me take his attempted revision point by editorial point:

Fagge: "The existing interpretation of Eugene V. Debs's eventful
visit to West Virginia is wrong to suggest that Debs `betrayed' the
West Virginia coal miners."

The facts are: in April 1913, the miners had been on strike for
more than a year; they had endured a cold winter in tents and on
meager rations. They had suffered humiliation, brutality and death
at the hands of the Baldwin-Felts mine guards. They had been
machined gunned by an armor plated train, illegally court martialed
and illegally imprisoned by Governor H. D. Hatfield. When the
miners were on the verge of winning this monumental labor dispute,
Governor Hatfield muscled his way in, ordered them to abandon the
strike and dictated the conditions under which they would return to
work. Miners who opposed these dictates were, under the governor's
orders, illegally deported from the state. Two labor newspapers
that opposed the governor's dictates were, under the governor's
orders, illegally suppressed as the militia destroyed their presses
and arrested and imprisoned their editors. The local UMWA officials
who were supposed to be representing the best interests of the
miners were working in cahoots with the governor to break the
strike.

Eugene V. Debs came into West Virginia and reported that the
governor was doing a good job! Fagge maintains that Debs did a good
job! I am confused!

This alone constituted a "betrayal" of the cause and interests
of the rank and file miners! But Debs did not let it stop
there.

In a fruitless effort to defend his report, Debs lied about the
contents of the report.

When his prevarications were exposed, Debs lied about the
motivations of his critics. He charged that his West Virginia
critics were not Socialists but members of the IWW who were opposed
to the contract simply because it was a contract, not because it
was a bad one that would have spelled defeat for the miners.

The miners clearly were not about to accept that worthless
contract. That is why the governor called a convention of selected
miners to ratify (actually "rubberstamp") his dictated contract
terms rather than submit the contract to a rank-and-file vote. That
is why the governor deported dissidents from the state. Most
importantly, that is why the miners eventually rejected that
contract, renewed their strike, and forced the coal companies to
grant all of their original demands.

Fagge: "[Debs] had no choice but to work with the UMWA
[officials]."

Fagge maintains that Debs's efforts did not constitute a
"betrayal" because "cooperating with the UMWA was the only
realistic alternative." This reminds me of President Lyndon
Johnson's rejoinder to his Vietnam War critics: "I'm the only
president you've got." With this reasoning, Fagge would have
supported the corruption and tyranny of Tony Boyle because there
was no "realistic alternative" to the UMWA. Fortunately, the rank
and file did not accept this reasoning in 1969 as they revolted,
and eventually Miners for Democracy emerged and so did Jock
Yablonski and Arnold Miller.

There were alternatives to Debs in 1913. Debs could have worked
with the rank and file miners to help them get a better contract.
In the summer of 1913, lead by Frank Keeney, the miners renewed the
strike and gained a better contract, despite the opposition of the
district officials. Contrary to Fagge's contention, this strike did
indeed "invalidate Debs's approach to this situation." In renewing
the strike, the miners were rejecting Hatfield -- who Debs had
praised. They were rejecting Hatfield's dictates -- which Debs had
upheld. And the miners were rejecting the local union officials --
with whom Debs was working. Fagge may try to explain this away all
he wants, but that, dear reader, is invalidation.

Debs also could have worked with the rank and file miners to
help them oust their corrupt and conservative union officials and
to get local officers who would truly represent their best
interests. A few years later, in 1916, the rank and file miners
again revolted against and ousted the union officials who had
worked with Hatfield and had supported his governor's worthless
contract -- the one that Debs had praised. This time, Debs
supported the miners' democratic effort. In a letter to a
Charleston labor paper, Debs confessed to his past sins as he
acknowledged that he had once supported these union leaders. He now
realized, Debs explained, that these officials "have been hand in
glove with the operators and the capitalist politicians" for their
"own selfish interests." "The revolting miners," he explained 3
years too late, "represent true unionism and are bound to triumph
over the miserable labor politicians."

Fagge does not mention that letter. Nor does he mention that
before being ordered into West Virginia and being ordered to work
with the local union officials, Debs had denounced Hatfield and his
anti-labor activities. In a national socialist publication, he had
called Hatfield "the handy man of the coal barons" who had taken
extreme efforts "to defeat the strike."

Fagge: "Corbin's argument relies upon a false estimation of the
influence of the Socialist party in the coalfields."

"The argument rests upon a false interpretation of the state
wide strength of the Socialist movement."

"This thesis seems even more flawed when compared with the
voting patterns of coal miners on European countries, where Social
Democrats or Labor parties often received majority votes."

Fagge's effort to dismiss Debs's blundering in West Virginia as
insignificant because the socialist movement in West Virginia was
insignificant is likewise confusing. If all this was insignificant,
why are we even discussing it? If Debs and other SPA officials were
incapable of working with their local affiliates, and with the
rank-and-file workers, it is highly significant, and does help to
explain why the SPA collapsed.

Fagge makes his point about the insignificance of the socialist
movement in West Virginia at the time by citing the aggregate
voting statistics, which he maintains were low, especially in
comparison to the socialist vote in European countries. He then
launches into a condescending lecture about what constitutes class
consciousness and class behavior -- a lecture that is as annoying
as it is patronizing.

This is not the time or place, and neither were my articles, to
get into a discussion about the concepts of class behavior and what
constitutes a viable socialist movement. But I will point out that,
Fagge to the contrary, voting patterns alone do not a socialist
movement make. Fagge is correct to maintain that the socialist vote
in West Virginia was small when compared to Europe's, but those
same European workers, instead of uniting to lose their chains,
marched right into World War I and slaughtered their working class
brothers in an international bloodbath.

I don't give a damn how they voted. Their actions spoke far
louder. As E. P. Thompson reasoned, class is a "relationship," not
a "thing." It is "defined by men as they lived their own history,
and in the end, this is the only definition."

Clearly, something was happening in southern West Virginia at
this stage. Less than a decade later, these same miners would be
engaging in the largest labor uprising in American history, the
"Armed March on Logan," and, as I show in Life, Work, and
Rebellion, this was an uprising that was decades in formation.
What happened during the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike helped
determine the course that would lead to the Armed March.

Maybe the miners would have moved away from Socialism and
pursued an independent course peculiar to southern West Virginia
without Debs ever having set foot in the state. Personally, I think
they would have done just that -- that the labor movement in
southern West Virginia would have developed along the paths it did,
the path that I detail in Life, Work, and Rebellion.

At the time of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike, the miners
were searching for identity, for an alternative to the way of life
and work in southern West Virginia -- a way of life that they hated
and sought top overthrow. By 1912-13, Socialism was providing an
alternative to more and more of them, when Debs entered the
picture. One cannot, by any means, rule out what happened during
the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike. This was such an important
period in West Virginia labor history. Although Fagge is right in
pointing out that in absolute terms the socialist vote remained
low, there was a 300 percent increase -- the largest increase in
socialist votes for any state in the nation in 1912, the peak year
of socialism in American history. By 1912, three important and
influential socialist newspapers had been established in the state,
the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star, the Charleston
Labor Argus and the Wheeling Majority.

Most importantly, by 1912, the rank-and-file leaders of the
southern West Virginia miners, including Frank Keeney, Fred Mooney,
L. C. Rodgers, Brant Scott, and "Peg Leg" Dwyer had joined the
Socialist party, but all of them had dropped out of the Party
immediately after the Debs's visit. And it would be these leaders
who lead the southern West Virginia miners in the March on Logan.
Maybe it was a coincidence that all of them dropped out at the same
time, and they did so shortly after Debs's visit. Maybe not.

Fagge: "The reasons for the rise or fall of socialism are
extremely complex. . . . To argue that this one visit and its
repercussions played a major role in sabotaging a successful
socialist movement is therefore a mistake."

This is a cheap shot that verges on intellectual dishonesty, and
I personally resent it. I am surprised and disappointed that the
editors of West Virginia History or your readers did not
catch this and insist that it either be taken out or reworded. I
would never offer such a simplistic explanation for an important
historical happening like the failure of socialism in America.

In my article in the Journal of American History, I asked
historians "to view and, possible reevaluate Debs and SPA in terms
of their grass roots policies and actions." I then carefully state:
"External sociological factors were certainly crucial in inhibiting
the party's growth, not only in southern West Virginia coal fields,
but throughout the country." I then point out that internal
conflicts with the party itself, as other historians argue,
certainly contributed to the collapse. And then, at this point, I
explain: "Nevertheless, historians cannot ignore the party's
internal failures and the strategy of its leaders who often framed
party tactics without any regard to the wants and needs of local
socialists and, consequently, proved incapable of working
beneficially and successfully with its local affiliates and the
rank-and-file workers."

Let me finish this response by pointing out that this rebuttal,
as well as the original article, was difficult to write. Debs was
and still is one if my heroes. The whole West Virginia episode may
have been out of character for Debs. I hope so. Debs, from what we
know for the most part, was a gentle, well meaning person who stood
for what is good in American society, and seemed to have stood for
what is best for American workers. And, as I pointed out on another
occasion, his rhetoric was beautiful and seductive.

But this incident may well have been typical of Debs and other
SPA officials inability to deal with their local affiliates and
with rank-and-file leaders. Did the reality match the rhetoric?

It is also clear that in this case, Debs botched it badly. Maybe
it was because he got caught in the middle of a complex situation
while trying to operate within the constraints of the NEC's orders
and this may have been an exceptional situation. On the other hand,
this may have been typical of Debs and other socialist officials
(like national political figures today) who become caught up in the
elitist world of national politics that they are no longer
sensitive to local workers.

At any rate, I see no reason to alter my interpretation of these
events or my conclusions.

A Reply of Sorts to David Corbin

When I wrote my re-appraisal of Eugene Debs' eventful visit to
West Virginia, I tried to offer an honest factual and scholarly
case for what I believed was a serious misinterpretation of the
evidence. Regrettably, David Corbin's reply does not do me the same
justice, rapidly descending into polemic and personal abuse. For
example, am I really to take seriously the bizarre suggestion that
my paper somehow makes me a de facto supporter of Tony Boyle and,
it would seem, Lyndon Johnson? Similarly what am I to make of
Corbin's confusing bluster about my supposed accusation on the
"failure" (his word) of American socialism in general, when my
paper quite clearly and specifically talks only about the socialist
movement in West Virginia? I could go on, of course, but I don't
believe Corbin's comments really merit a reply in print. When
scholarly debate turns into polemic, it usually distorts more than
it reveals, and I think the West Virginia miners and Eugene V. Debs
deserve much, much better than that.